Hanoi, May 6 (VNA) – The Ministry of Health (MoH) has included a number of new vaccines in the National Expanded Programme on Immunisation as part of efforts to improve the efficiency of disease prevention, the Preventive Health Department reported on May 6.

According to the ministry, in the context of the high risk of disease outbreak, especially infectious diseases, inoculation campaigns to administer free Japanese encephalitis B injections and the Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) to children aged under five are planned.

Meanwhile, measles and rubella vaccination campaigns benefited nearly 20 million children aged from 1-14, and eventually for those aged from 16-17 in recent times, contributing to containing the spread of the diseases.

As scheduled, the Inactivated Polio Vaccine (IPV) will be put to use from 2017, while the use of a vaccine against Rota virus will begin from 2018.

The MoH affirmed that the free provision of new vaccines in vaccination programmes is to promote sustainable disease prevention, towards sweeping out dangerous infectious diseases.

The health sector will continue studying to add new vaccines such as dengue and avian influenza H5N1 vaccines to the national vaccination campaigns, the ministry said.

Along with these efforts, the ministry also worked with the military-run telecommunication group Viettel on a project to build software for national vaccination information management.

This enables medical workers to keep close watch on and summarise the vaccination timetable of people, thus ensuring sufficient vaccinations are on schedule and this will improve the efficiency of State management in the field.

The software has been piloted in the northern province of Bac Ninh and in Hanoi. The next beneficiaries will be Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang city.

Over 700 districts with more than 11,000 communes and wards are expected to benefit from the project when the software is deployed nationwide.